The US surges 30,000 troops (plus 1,400 US Marines from the 26 MEU) to Afghanistan. The Taliban threat surges thousands of roadside bombs and IED’s. Quid pro quo.
But attributing a recent increase to “a mild winter” that has kept mountain passes open is simply ridiculous.
Another US/NATO servicemember was killed over the weekend by an IED…the grind continues.
Key Highlights:
Four primary threat streams emanate from the Pakistan – the Mullar Omar Quetta Shura Taliban, the Haqqani network, the Hekmaktyer organization, and AQ. For almost a decade these distinct groups have co-existed and operated exclusively with AQ parceling support from each. It does not bode well when recent intelligence and battlefield evidence indicates that the threat has merged. Regardless of the reason, be it recent US/NATO pressure creating battlefield syndicates or ISI ...
Continue Reading →The primary health care plan for our active duty force, called TRICARE will not provide “cognitive rehabilitation therapy” (CRT) for treatment of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) because the treatment is “still unproven.” Project Share, a charity based out of the Shepard Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Injury in Atlanta is singularly focused on assisting brain-damaged soldiers – their efforts, to serve as a ...
Continue Reading →In regards to the highly touted release of the administrations review of Afghanistan, one-step up and two-steps back.
One-step up, “strategy is showing progress”; two-steps back, no new information on how soon Afghan Security Forces will be able to assume responsibility for security and when the “rat-lines” coming out of Pakistan can be severed.
One-step up, “we are on track to achieve our goals”; two-steps back, gains are still “fragile and reversible” and ...
Continue Reading →National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) are authoritative assessments by the Director of National Intelligence related to a particular national security issue. NIE’s are not written in a vacuum and express coordinated judgments of the entire US intelligence community. Although these assessments are classified, summaries and excerpts are simultaneously provided to policy makers and/or leaked to the media when NIE’s are published.
Commanders in Afghanistan argue that the most recent spate of ...
Continue Reading →Six American soldiers were killed and more than a dozen American and Afghan troops were wounded on Sunday morning when a van packed with explosives was detonated at a new jointly operated outpost in southern Afghanistan.
The soldiers were inside a small mud-walled building near the village of Sangsar, north of the Arghandab River, when the bomber drove up to one of the walls and exploded his charge around 9 ...
Continue Reading →Never knew that the Department of Defense publishes a Medical Surveillance report , but even without the findings everyone knows that mental health problems are the number one health issue facing our troops. That’s a no-brainer. The November report highlighted in this story by CNN points out the fact that mental health issues send male troops to the hospital than any other cause, and are the second highest for hospitalization amongst women ...
Continue Reading →The New York Times reports that Afghan President Karzai is still against NATO night raids. In President Karzai’s first press conference since returning from Lisbon and the NATO conference had the following to say:
“The position and stance of the Afghan government was very clear and is very clear, those night raids which cause civilian houses to be destroyed, cause civilian causalities or they are entering people’s houses without coordinating with the Afghan forces … we are against them. ...
Continue Reading →Not sure how much arm-twisting went on to get Afghan President Karzai to change his mind, but yesterday NATO reported that he was actually on board with NATO’s military campaign and “reluctantly” in support of nighttime SOF raids. President Karzai nor his staff could be reached for comment, but if the old adage of “the first report is a false report” holds true, we can expect some additional clarifying statements over the next ...
Continue Reading →In the starkest terms to date, President Karzai said that the visibility and intensity of US/NATO operations must be reduced and that US SOF night raids end. “It’s not desirable for the Afghan people either to have 100,000 or more foreign troops going around the country endlessly,” he said. These were not off the cuff remarks, but instead provided to reporters in an hour-long sit-down interview (an exasperated General Petreaus ...
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